A smashing celebration at Daytona's Hard Rock Hotel

Wednesday

May 2, 2018 at 12:00 PMMay 2, 2018 at 12:00 PM

DAYTONA BEACH — As christenings go, it was the perfect one to commemorate the grand opening of the new music-driven Hard Rock Hotel Daytona Beach.

On an outdoor stage on one of the hotel’s terraces, splinters flew as nearly two dozen dignitaries hoisted guitars aloft and then brought them crashing to the floor, all against the postcard-worthy backdrop of a perfect beach day.

“Welcome to the Hard Rock Hotel in Daytona Beach,” Abbas Abdulhussein, president of Summit Hospitality Management Group, proclaimed to hundreds of guests at an invitation-only celebration that concluded with a sunset concert by country act LANCO and fireworks on the beach.

The music capped a daylong party that included a press conference with executives from Hard Rock International and Summit Hospitality, the Daytona Beach developers that invested more than $40 million into the transformation of the building from its past-life as one of Daytona Beach’s dirtiest, most notorious hotels.

At the afternoon press conference, Abdulhussein, surrounded by other members of Summit’s family ownership group, reflected on the work that led to Tuesday’s celebration.

“We take the eyesores, the blight, and we see the opportunity for a world-class hotel,” he said. “We saw the potential here for a lovely ballroom that looks out on the ocean, a lovely deck where we’re going to have a concert today. This is a world-class hotel here in Daytona Beach that we are very proud of.”

Dale Hipsh, a senior vice president of Hard Rock International, added that the quality of local ownership was a key component in Hard Rock’s high expectations for Daytona Beach.

“We have great owners all around the world, no more so than here in Daytona Beach,” Hipsh said. “What an icon of Daytona Beach this hotel has become, in collaboration with our owners here.”

The day’s festivities also included a tour of the building’s rock memorabilia hosted by Jeff Nolan, Hard Rock’s Orlando-based music and memorabilia historian. It emphasized the Florida connection in rock music artifacts ranging from black-and-white images of the Beatles frolicking in the Florida surf to guitars once owned by the Allman Brothers and Gainesville native Tom Petty.

“It’s the thing we knew when we came into Daytona, that there were so many stories to tell about Florida, about Daytona,” Nolan said. “The musical legacy of Florida is impossible to overstate.”

Tuesday’s guest list included an array of local elected officials and other area leaders, including Lori Campbell Baker, executive director of the Daytona Beach Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, Daytona Beach Shores Mayor Harry Jennings and Volusia County Council Chair Ed Kelley.

“I’m excited personally, and as a resident of Volusia County, that they (Hard Rock) are here,” Kelley said. “They will be part of the catalyst for what’s going to make a difference in the Daytona Beach area.”

Not all the guests were VIPs.

Carolus de Jong and his girlfriend, Corlinda de Groot, on vacation from the Netherlands, stayed an extra night at the hotel for the occasion. Together, they have visited 240 Hard Rock locations worldwide since 1995, de Jong said, and planned their Florida trip around the new Hard Rock’s opening.

They had high praise for the hotel and Daytona Beach.

“It’s awesome,” said de Jong, 46, a school teacher. “Nice people, a nice place. With the sunshine, the beach, the ocean, we could spend a week here, at least.”

The couple was confident that Hard Rock’s international brand would draw visitors to Daytona Beach.

“It’s like a family, all around the world,” de Jong said. “When you say, ‘Hard Rock,’ everyone knows it. It’s very famous.”

The grand opening party was a hard-earned milestone for Summit executives, who started working to redevelop the former Desert Inn after acquiring the property for $6 million in 2013.

Summit had to gut and rebuild the entire interior of that former hotel, once proclaimed by TripAdvisor as one of the dirtiest hotels in the nation, to transform it into a luxury gem.

On Tuesday, Abdulhussein compared the process to one of his favorite music concerts, a rain-drenched 1983 performance by singer Diana Ross in New York’s Central Park.

“Throughout the storm, she continued to sing,” he said. “That taught me a lot about passion, passion about what you do and who you do it for. This was a lot like that Diana Ross concert, because things didn’t go as planned.

“It was worth getting here, at the end of the day,” he said, “and I’m really proud of what we’ve accomplished here.”

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